


builds like few

by orphan_account



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, No character death don't worry, One Shot, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They haven't seen each other in a year. But then Loki gets a call saying he's Thor's only emergency contact, and Thor's been in an accident.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 159





	builds like few

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ravenbringslight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/gifts).

> Remember how you prompted something a million years ago?

It’s small. Quiet. A whisper between lips so soft and so chaste, they feel barely there at all against the stubble on his chin. On his lips. And it’s a glimpse of the life he’s craved, has wanted, knows he’ll always have.

Thor blinks awake and is alone, is not alone, is wondering where his brother went.

  
  
  
  
  


Loki wakes with the feeling it’ll be a bad day. Just one of those that feels off.

He trips into the wall on his way to the bathroom. Knicks his chin shaving. Stubs his toe on the counter on his way out. Bleeds into the pressed collar of the nice baby blue button up he’d bought not three days earlier.

He runs a red light, but it’s a mercy when no cops seem to be around.

He has to fire someone at work, not twenty minutes before he’s off the clock. Home free, and guilty as hell. He picks up a bottle of Lambrusco and knocks half of it into his sink as he’s pouring a glass.

He says, fuck it, and orders a pizza, but it’s late and arrives with no cheese. Who forgets to put cheese on a pizza?

Loki ends up just kind of standing there, in the middle of his living room. Sighs and makes his head go blank. Passively considers just going to bed because like, really, what the hell?

His cell rings. Makes him jump.

The voice on the other end makes his heart sink to his knees.

It’s a bad day.

  
  
  


I haven’t seen you in a year, he thinks, but doesn’t voice.

I haven’t heard your voice for twelve months, he thinks, but doesn’t put it out there, into the air, make it real.

“I didn’t even know if you were alive,” Loki finally settles on, because it’s truer than the rest, even though none are a lie.

Thor lies in the ICU, intubated and cheeks spongey purple, like he’s been soaked through. Tan skin gone pale and glassy, fingers swollen from river water. Bloated, like a corpse.

His eye is gone.

And Loki thinks, says, “I did this to you.”

  
  
  


It’s an endless stream of doctors and nurses and financials and Thor, just watching him through it all like a ghost. Or like Loki’s a ghost. He supposes he sort of is. Thor doesn’t say a word to him.

Loki knows he was only called--only  _ knows _ about the car crash--because he was listed as Thor’s only emergency contact.

“You’re fucking dumb,” Loki chides him, ten minutes before he’s due in for his second surgery. “You’re so stupid. What if I didn’t show up.”

Thor blinks his one remaining eye at Loki like he knows it’s not a question, and he’s right. It’s not.

“There’s no one else you could have called?”

He doesn’t say anything to that one either. He’s in surgery for four hours and Loki doesn’t take a full breath until he’s out and his blood pressure is stable.

  
  
  


Loki brings Thor back to his own home. It’s the same flat he’s always had since moving out on his own. It used to be Loki’s once, too. But then he’d left. He’d left.

Now it’s his brother’s. A stranger’s.

“Loki,” Thor murmurs one morning, before waking completely up. His lips bend in that nice way they used to before he knew Loki was like Loki is. Rotten and piecemeal. Unworthy of whatever love and affection his brother once harbored.

Loki helps him shower. Helps him piss, because the drugs still kind of have Thor’s system, his legs, messed up. And Thor wants to stand, because he  _ wants _ , wants, wants. Wants a lot, and Loki sees what kind of want it is, briefly, when he holds on a little longer as he’s led back to sit. Sit on something soft, comfy, warm.

Something lame and detached from the way Loki wants to vanish into the carpet and fucking scream.

  
  
  


Thor keeps looking at him. Eye seems to be caught like a magnet on the edge of everything Loki does. Everything he touches.

“What do you  _ want _ ?” he snaps, finally, on the fourth day.

Thor blinks and winces. Rubs at his still-bandaged temple.

“You look more real is all.”

And Loki...doesn’t know what he means. It’s the first thing he’s said in days.

  
  
  


It’s days that blur together.

Days filled with meals and Netflix and books read aloud--because it hurt Thor too much to concentrate on words on paper--and whispered half-snaps like there’s a fight brewing. There always used to be so why should now be any different.

It’s days spent cleaning Thor’s wound. Peeling off the blood-sopped packing lodged in the fleshy socket. Once-eye, all gone. No pearly lens to peer back at him in Thor-like mirth and joy and love and righteous anger. Because Thor did get angry, sometimes. All the time. But never angry like Loki.

Thor leans in on the second week, when the swab of soothing medicated cream over his mangled skin is more painful than it usually is. Leans in and Loki leans back, because it feels like that first day. That last day. The day Thor pushed them both half way to ruin and made Loki kick them the rest of the way in.

  
  
  


“I still love you.”

“I know.”

“I still dream about kissing you.”

“I know that too.”

“I hate you for leaving.”

“I know that the most. You should.”

“You shouldn’t have come. Back to this. To me. You shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t have to do this.”

“Shut up, Thor,” Loki whispers, stealing a slice of pizza from Thor’s plate. “Just shut up.”

  
  
  


“You hate me,” Thor asks, not quite asks. It’s been two months and his eye is doing much better. Loki is still finding excuses to help out. He catches Loki’s wrist as they pass each other in the kitchen. “You hate me, Loki.”

“I’ve always hated you.”

“You love me.”

Loki feels his wrist held snug.

“I’ve always done that too.”

  
  
  


It’s been three months and Loki thinks it’s been long enough. Rage fades like a lot of things, builds like few. Easy to gain and harder to let die, but Loki supposes, maybe, he’s similar.

When he tries to kiss Thor goodnight, on the mouth, Thor recoils.

“Loki--”

“Well.”

“You don’t have to. Just because I’m...because I’m like this.”

“You’re guilty?”

Thor looks like his heart just snapped like a harp string.

“I forced this on you. I kissed you that day. I--”

“I kissed you back, fool.”

Thor doesn’t recoil again.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s a small and quiet thing. Not so soft but something near it. When he kisses Thor like this it’s meant to be a shiver of a thing, hardly there yet meant to be felt. A shadow in old sunlight. A pebble dropped gentle into a stream.

“It’s a promise,” Loki whispers to his waking brother, and he means it as much as he wants it, craves it, always wishes to prove true.

Thor pulls him into bed, ignoring the blare of the alarm.


End file.
